JEFFREY OKAFOR FOUND GUILTY OF MURDER AFTER SIX YEARS ON THE RUN.

KILLER - JEFFREY OKAFOR

 A teenager who knifed a CBBC star to death outside a nightclub before confessing the crime to his girlfriend and fleeing to Nigeria has been found guilty of murder.

Jeffrey Okafor was just 18 when he stabbed 19-year-old Carl Beatson-Asiedu outside a nightclub in Vauxhall, south west London, as two groups of clubbers brawled. Within an hour of the attack, Okafor, now 24, rang girlfriend Merissa Anderson to say he had been involved in a 'madness', jurors at Woolwich Crown Court heard.

A few days later he confessed to stabbing Mr Beatson-Asiedu, who was known as 'Charmz' and had appeared in CBBC's 'MI High', in the stomach.

LATE BEATSON ASIEDU

Police arrived at his East Dulwich home on August 13, 2009 to arrest him but he was already in hiding and took a flight from Heathrow to Lagos using his brother's name and passport.

However, he was found guilty of murder by a jury in London today - six years after Mr Beatson-Asiedu's death - after he was extradited last year. Okafor denied murder but the jury took just two hours to convict him. 

Prosecutor Sarah Whitehouse, QC, said Okafor had no connection with his victim prior to the attack.

She said: 'It is not clear, and will probably never be known, what led up to the killing if Carl Beatson by Jeffrey Okafor. You may hear that there was some ill-feeling between some members of the two groups, but there was nothing serious enough in the background for anyone to explain why knives should be drawn. 

'What is clear, the prosecution say, is that Jeffrey Okafor was the man who killed him.'

Mr Beatson-Asiedu was attacked as he left Club Life with fellow DJ Peter Lama, 19, known as 'DJ Syper', where they had earlier performed as the double-act 'KidnPlay' at an event called Summer Vibz.

As they walked out at around 5am with friends, including Jermaine Coker, they were set upon by the larger attacking group.

CCTV footage shows Okafor, wearing a distinctive T-shirt and single black glove, and Ademujimi-Falade 'lurking 'behind a large rubbish bin opposite the entrance to the club.

Shortly after, Mr Beatson-Asiedu's group were attacked 'almost simultaneously'.

Mr Lama was stabbed in the buttock by Okafor's friend Abu Mansaray, but managed to return to the club, where bouncers locked the doors and called the police.

Meanwhile, Mr Coker was chased by Junior Ademujimi-Falade. Both survived their injuries but Mr Beatson-Asiedu, who was seen staggering along the road before collapsing, suffered a stab wound to the stomach.

His friends bundled him into the back of a car and rang for an ambulance, but police stopped the speeding vehicle as they struggled to find St Thomas' Hospital.

Mr Beatson-Asiedu was pronounced dead a short time later, with a post-mortem examination concluding that he had died from a single stab wound to his heart.

Ms Anderson later handed her boyfriend's gloves into police after he told her about the brawl and forensic tests revealed DNA on one of the gloves could have come from Mr Beatson-Asiedu.

Ms Whitehouse added: 'Three days later, Miss Anderson was at Jeffrey Okafor's house. He was out but he telephoned Miss Anderson and said "You know that Ed Hardy T-shirt? Get it into a plastic bag and put it into a bin in the road".

'Miss Anderson felt under pressure and did as she was asked. 'Later on that day Jeffrey Okafor returned home. He seemed agitated and said "I am going down" and "The feds are going to be on me".'

He was in hiding when police arrived at his home on August 13, 2009, and took a flight to Nigeria five days later.

Okafor was extradited and arrived back to the UK on November last year when he was arrested and charged.

Junior Ademujimi-Falade, 24, was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter and jailed for eight years following a two-week retrial at the Old Bailey in December 2012.

Fellow attacker Bolaji Kako-Are, 20, a Coventry University IT student, was jailed for 30 months in June 2011 after being convicted of violent disorder.

Okafor's brother Junior Okafor, 27, was jailed for four years in August 2010 for perverting the course of justice.

He had convinced their mother to pay for a plane ticket and arranged for his girlfriend to drive his brother to Heathrow Airport.

In a statement read to the court at the time, John Beatson-Asiedu said his son's death had 'created an enormous void in all our lives.'

He said: 'It is an unbelievable loss to his family, friends, loved ones and fans who followed his music career.

Carl was precious, loving, charming, and was always smiling.

'Not only did that person or group of people sentence him to death, but when they executed their judgement they immediately imposed a life sentence of pain and sorrow on us.

'This grief we feel is not normal because it is embedded in our consciousness and stored in our brains.

'All we have are our memories of Carl. They are good memories, they remind us all of personal and special times - but they are memories.

'Nothing will bring Carl back, nothing will bring back the moments we had together.

'We will never see Carl grow up, get married or started a family.

'His life was ripped from our world and the rest of our family in a vicious and cowardly attack, where he was left to run for his life and die on his own in the middle of a London street.'